Progressive Gothic Metal at it's very best - 99%

This album is in the top 3 of my favourite metal albums of all time. In this moment, I would class this album on the second position just after The Vision Bleak's "Carpathia - A dramatic poem". I personally think that 2005 has been the greatest metal year of the last decade.

"The perpetual motion" has everything that an exceptional metal album needs. It is atmospheric and emotional, it is very gothic and bleak which I like a lot. The songs are diversified, surprising and there are a lot of things to get discovered even after multiple listenings. The musicians are all doing an outstanding job. The drummer is an animal and plays extremely tight, the bass guitar is audible and energizing, the guitar does some really dreamy and spacey solos and the singer does melancholic chants, whispering sounds, emotionally melodic parts and aggressive growls and does the job of four or five singers. The album is intense and empathic and always authentic. You can feel the sorrow, loss and melancholy the band is talking about and you really get drowned into a maelstrom of negative emotions but not without recognizing that there is still a little shining, a little sign of hope above all in this music. You can see images and feel particular emotions just by listening to different parts of different songs on this epic masterpiece that unites ambient music, progressive metal, death metal, gothic and dark metal. I would just call this Progressive Gothic Metal at it's very best to keep it short and sweet.

The songs, well, they are all amazing. The dark gothic metal song "Out of breath" opens and penetrates your soul like a frosty wind.

"Unrelenting" opens the "Lost boy" story line and surprises with tribal drums, amazing sound effects and transports you from one emotion to the other within seconds. "I can't get rid of it" follows that cluster and becomes a maelstrom of voices. The melodramatic "What else could we've said" is really atmospheric and gives us a little break, before "So be it" goes straight to your face without pity and blows you away. It is an excellent finale for the "Lost boy" story line of the album.

"Everyday life" opens the "Down" cycle and story line of the album and begins like a jam session before melancholic vocals and a dreamy piano introduce into a very dynamical and diversified song that goes straight over to "1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8" that surprises with dominant bass riffs before the very melancholic and dreamy "By the way" leads you towards the aggressive verses of "My friends" that has a very catchy chorus to finish this chapter with the spacey, melancholically and calm "Even if".

The last two songs form "The sad fairytale" and leave you in a depressive and profound tranquility where harmony and melancholy unite and drown you into a completely grey and rainy universe of wind and wuthering of the emotions.

The music is over and minutes after the last sound has gone, you are still there thinking and dreaming about what you have heard. You seem frozen and emotionless and realize that this album is a depressive drug. You won't live the intense emotions another time, but you can't fight your desire and press play again.

This album touches me very much, it is so rich of emotions and atmosphere and gets never boring. It is a truly amazing experience that everyone should experience by himself or herself to understand what I am trying to talk about. Lay down on a couch in a dark room, close your eyes and let your spirit and soul travel on the waves of those amazing sounds for just a little bit more than forty minutes of your life. You won't regret it. I can't even create enough words to describe the aura of this masterpiece and one of my favourite albums.

It is such a shame that this band has broken up, I wish they would come back. Nevertheless, but their amazing album and support them! Make yourself a present and enjoy!

A Better Effort This Time - 77%

One could not wish for more stylistic diversity than can be found on the latest from The Old Dead Tree, “The Perpetual Motion.” Shifting between emotions like a doppelganger, the band displays an uncanny knack for creating a dark atmosphere while remaining vastly accessible. Vocalist Manuel Munoz breaks the trends by applying a vocal technique that is usually associated with much more commercial acts, causing the band’s music display a refreshing amalgam of varied context.

An album that is split up into 4 separate acts, “The Perpetual Motion” injects extreme influences into rock music successfully on cuts like “My Friends” and “Unrelenting.” Diversified influences are not the only positive attribute you’ll find here. Each track has the ability to stand on its own no matter what the style, giving The Old Dead Tree a certain broad appeal. Textured elements are pervasive throughout the band’s songwriting. The looseness and intimacy of “Everyday Life” leads to a brilliant mixture of melodies that shimmer and sing with conviction.

Certainly “The Perpetual Motion” finds The Old Dead Tree as being quite palatable even in light of the band’s more extreme influences. An album that college radio will no doubt spin until it breaks; this album is definitely one to look toward, especially if you are a fan of pseudo-psychedelic, dark rock sounds.